Other well-known titles disappearing from the service include 15 seasons of South Park, Cruel Intentions, Deep Impact and Woody Allen's 1980 comedy Stardust Memories.

Earlier reports suggested the vast cull was due to a platform move from Netflix to the new Warner Instant Archive streaming service, currently open to US residents only.

Warner Bros later denied the claims via Twitter, stating it is not "involved in Netflix's business decisions" and carries no content from MGM and Universal as the service is Warner-only.

It has now emerged via Slate that Netflix chose not to renew the older titles.

In a statement the company said: "The vast majority of the titles that expire on Wednesday are older features that were aggregated by Epix. We recently added many great, more recent titles such as ParaNorman (Universal), Hunger Games (Epix), Safe (Epix) and Bachelorette (Weinstein). Tomorrow we will also add MI:2, among many other titles.

"Netflix is a dynamic service, we constantly update the TV shows and movies that are available to our members. We will add more than 500 titles May 1, but we also have titles expiring, this ebb and flow happens all the time."

Last year Netflix cut a deal with Starz, resulting in the loss of around 1,000 titles, including Disney movies Toy Story and Tron.